Bird Portraits by Ernest Thompson Seton

Author:Ernest Thompson Seton [Seton, Ernest Thompson]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2016-09-06T22:00:00+00:00

THE REDSTART

THE REDSTART

Almost a fourth of the birds usually seen by a good observer in a morning's walk in May or June, belong to a family known as Warblers. If they were really as musical as their name suggests, people might know them better; but even as it is, their colors are often so bright that the birds well repay one who takes the trouble to make their acquaintance. Perhaps the best known of the family is the Yellow Warbler, not to be confused with the Goldfinch, from which the absence of the latter's black cap, wings, and tail will distinguish it. The Oven-bird, whose loud teach-er, teach-er, teach-er is so common a sound in dry woods in summer, is another member of the Warbler family. The gayest of them all, however, in most parts of our country, is the Redstart. His coal black head, with bright orange patches at the shoulders, and yellowish bands across the wings and tail, suggest a miniature Oriole.

The Redstart is a splendid bit of color; in Cuba he is known, according to Mr. Chapman, as "Candelita," the little torch. Black and orange is a not uncommon combination of color among birds, and never fails to be effective. The Redstart, moreover, makes the most of his color by keeping both wings and tail spread, so that the yellow and orange is constantly displayed. He flits from one twig to another, spreading his little black-and-yellow fan, flying out, turning his black head and glowing shoulders toward one, and continually uttering a little song, not much in itself, and only full of meaning and association to the bird's friends, to whom it suggests leafy shade near brooks in the summer heat.

The name of the family to which the Redstart belongs needs, perhaps, a word of explanation. It simply means that our Warblers are related to a family of European birds which have well earned their name, since the family includes the Nightingale and one or two other birds almost as musical. The name Redstart, too, is English,— start coming from the Anglo-Saxon word for tail. It was applied in England to a bird with a red tail, and since our bird has bright color in the tail, the name was transferred to it by the English settlers.

Many of the Warblers frequent the thick woods and are little noticed; the Redstart, however, often builds in the trees or shrubbery about the house, particularly if a brook or pool afford an abundance of insects. In the crotch of a sapling or on a limb, the female places a pretty nest built of bark and soft materials. The female resembles the male in the pattern of color, but the black is replaced by gray, and the orange by a faint yellowish shade. Males only one year old resemble the female so closely that the sharp little song often seems to proceed from the bill of a female; in reality it is a young male that is singing, one not yet arrived at the full splendor of his future gay plumage.

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